Louis Armstrong
You can't take it for granted. Even if we have two, three days off I still have to blow that horn a few hours to keep up the chops. I mean I've been playing 50 years, and that's what I've been doing in order to keep in that groove there.Collection: Mean
Red beans and ricely yours.Collection: Vegetables
Music is either good or bad, and it's got to be learned. You got to have balance.Collection: Music
Never play a thing the same way twice.Collection: Inspirational
[Bebop is] Chinese music.Collection: Chinese
It's America's classical music ... this becomes our tradition ... the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world? ... we contributed Louis ArmstrongCollection: Country
I've Got the World on a String.Collection: World
Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of like half-fast.Collection: Music
There's a thing I've dreamed of all my life, and I'll be damned if it don't look like it's about to come true-to be King of the Zulu's parade. After that, I'll be ready to die.Collection: Kings
Jazz is what I play for a living.Collection: Play
As many bands as you heard [in New Orleans], that's how many bands you heard playing right. I thought I was in Heaven playing second trumpet in the Tuxedo Brass Band -- and they had some funeral marches that would just touch your heart, they were so beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
You will never know what the meaning of Jazz is if ask what it means.Collection: Mean
A lot of the musicians asked me if when I hit my high-Cs on the records I had a clarinet take the notes. Some [thought] I had invented some kind of gadget so I could play high register. They weren't satisfied until they handed me a trumpet that they had with them and had me swing it. Then they cheered.Collection: Play
White folks still in the lead.Collection: White
Unless you know what it is I ain't never going to be able to explain it to you.Collection: Able
When I was young and very green, I worte that tune, Sister Kate, and someone said that's fine, let me publish it for you. I'll give you fifty dollars. I didn't know nothing about papers, and business, and I sold it outright.Collection: Giving
It's getting almost so bad a colored man hasn't got any country.Collection: Country
We don't play slow and we don't play fast, we play half fastCollection: Guitar
If you still have to ask, shame on youCollection: Shame
There are Two Secrets to Success: 1. Don't tell ANYONE Everything you know 2.If you have to ask what Jazz is, you'll never know.Collection: Two
Never play anything the same way twice.Collection: Music
There is no such thing as 'on the way out' as long as you are still doing something interesting and good; you're in the business because you're breathing.Collection: Fashion
The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.Collection: Music
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces of people goin' by I see friends shaking hands saying, "How do you do" They're really saying "I love you." I hear babies cry, I watch then grow They'll learn much more than I'll ever know; And I think to myself, What a wonderful world; Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world. Oh yeah!Collection: Baby
The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn.Collection: Crazy
I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful worldCollection: Nature
I don't need words. It's all in the phrasing.Collection: Music
My life has always been my music, it's always come first, but the music ain't worth nothing if you can't lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, 'cause what you're there for is to please the people.Collection: Music
Even If I have two three days off, you still have to blow that horn. You have to keep up those chops... I have to warm up everyday for at least an hour.Collection: Blow
When you're dead, you're done.Collection: Done
If you don't understand it, don't mess with it.Collection: Mess
It makes you feel good, man, makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you're with another tea smoker, it makes you feel a special kinship.Collection: Men
You either have it or you don't. You play your horn just like you sing a song or a hymn. If it's in your heart, you express yourself in the tune.Collection: Song
I don't get involved in politics. I just blow my horn.Collection: Blow
At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the "mis-de" and you just got meaner and meaner.Collection: Marijuana
There's only two ways to sum up music; either it's good or it's bad. If it's good you don't mess about it, you just enjoy it.Collection: Two
You see, pops, that's the kind of talk that's ruining the music. Everyone's trying to do something new, no one trying to learn the fundamentals first. All them young cats playing their wierd chords. And what happens? No one's working.Collection: Cat
Love is talkative passion.Collection: Disappointment
The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell!Collection: Government
It ain't whatcha say, it's the way howcha say it.Collection: Communication
I spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail. The judge gave me a suspended sentence and I went to work that night - wailed just like nothing happened. What strucked me funny though - I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana, they thought marijuana was a chick. Woo boy - that really fractured me!Collection: Stars
When you're with another tea smoker it makes you feel a special kinship.Collection: Tea
I had a chance to play with the best musicians that were coming through because I was pretty good myself or else they wouldn't have tolerated with me.Collection: Play
We don’t play slow and we don’t play fast, we play half fast.Collection: Guitar
My life has always been my music, it’s always come first, but the music ain’t worth nothing if you can’t lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, ’cause what you’re there for is to please the people.Collection: Firsts
At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the “mis-de” and you just got meaner and meaner...Collection: Firsts